I have bad news and good news.
Bad news first.
1. The Raven King’s publication date is being moved to February 2016.
2. This is because I specifically asked readers to record endless fan versions of the Murder Squash song and that has yet to happen.
3. #2 is a lie.
4. It is actually because no one has yet brought a murdered-out Dodge Viper to any of my signings for me to drive.
5. #4 is also a lie.
6. The real reason is because these books take a long time. Not so much in the drafting, but in the editing. Lover once told me that the word recursive had been invented to describe holding a conversation with me; another friend told me that recursive was how she’d describe the Raven Cycle books. I delight in writing these books so that they reward the reread, so that every sentence in them points to another sentence two books before. I had allowed the same amount of time for this process as The Dream Thieves (the longest of the Raven Cycle books so far). I guessed wrong. In fact, I sunk (sank?)(had sunk?)(sonk) more drafting and editing time into this draft than any of the other Raven Cycle books. Unfortunately, the vagaries of publication season schedules means that even asking for just a few more weeks of editorial time sometimes shifts the publication date far more than a few weeks. This is partly because malevolent elf formations discourage author events in December and seasonal ennui makes it impossible to tour an author during January, and partly because of mysterious algorithms that dictate the movements of publishing professionals in the colder months. So when I said, “Scholastic, may I have three more weeks and a Ferrari F12?” they replied, “You may have three more weeks and a rental Nissan Altima and also your publication date is now the end of February.” You see that both you and I have to live with compromise and disappointment.
7. I’m not actually very sorry. I’m sorry to not hand you guys a book at the end of September, but I needed that extra time, and I’m glad that Scholastic was amiable about giving it to me. I do think The Raven King is my favorite in the series. Also, let the record show that I’ve been a very timely author to this point, so hopefully you can forgive 16 months between books instead of 11 this one time.
7. I’ve actually been sitting on this news for a bit, but I was hoping to have a cover to show you at the same time, because it’s always nice to be able to start a post with “I have bad news and good news” instead of just “I have bad news and a rental Nissan Altima.” But it turns out that Adam Doyle hasn’t finished the cover yet, presumably because he’s also still waiting for a murdered-out Dodge Viper or the Murder Squash song. So for the good news part, I will instead share with you the first line of the last book instead.
*at this point, the publication date has only been updated in bookseller database, but the news has been trickling out all weekend, so I figured I’d bite the bullet instead of waiting for online retailers to update.
:(
:(((((
hawberries
